Windows 8 Developer Preview

Curious about Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system? Microsoft showed a live preview of Windows 8 in the 2011 “Build” event and a developer preview of Windows 8 was released on 13th September at the MSDN website.

Here is how the start screen of Windows 8 looks like:

And here is the lock screen of Windows8, as seen in Windows 8 developer preview

So what exactly is Windows8 and how does it differ from Windows7?

Windows 8 is not just another version of a desktop operating system – it takes computing to the cloud level. You will need a Windows Live user account to get started with Windows 8, because all the settings, apps and customizations will be synced across all your computers that are tied to your Windows Live user account. As a Windows 8 user, there is no need to worry about having different computers and tweaking through settings and configurations on all computers, over and over again. With Windows 8, all your customizations will be automatically synced, as long as they are connected to the Internet.

With a completely new and fascinating Metro user interface, Windows 8 will give you the feel of using a tablet computer on your desktop itself. While Windows 8 is more of a tablet friendly operating system, it can also run smoothly on a classic desktop PC, which has at least 1GB memory and 20 GB hard drive space.

How to Download Windows 8 Developer Preview:

If you want to try out the latest version of Windows8 developer preview, follow these steps:

1. Click Windows start menu and right click on “Computer” and select “Properties”

2. This will open the system information control panel window. Here, you have to check whether the copy of Windows you are currently using is 32 bit or 64 bit. Knowing the bit type of your current operating system is very important, because you have to download the same copy of Windows 8 which matches with the bit type of your existing operating system.

Have a glance under the “System” section and you should find the bit type in a moment.

3. Go to the Windows Dev center website[1] and click the “Get Started” link under the section “Download the Windows Developer preview”

4. On this page, you will find that Windows 8 developer preview is available under three categories.

Choose the version which matches with the bit type of your existing operating system. To make things clear, if you are using Windows7, Windows Vista or Windows XP in 32 bit, you should download the 32 bit copy of Windows 8 developer preview.

The download file consists of an ISO image with a gigantic file size of 3 GB, so it should take a couple of hours to download on your computer. By the time you have downloaded the ISO image, we will publish a step by step installation guide on installing Windows 8 developer preview on your computer.